Meseret Defar crossed the finish line of the London Olympic 5000m with disbelief, relief and pain etched on her face, and she fell to her knees on the ground. Clutching, kissing and holding aloft an image of the Madonna and Child that she had hidden in her tank top, the Ethiopian Defar wept, repeating the Amharic words, "Amlake hoy! Amlake hoy!" ("My God! My God!").Defar had won the 5000 at the 2004 Athens Olympics and failed to defend it in Beijing four years later, when she took bronze behind her teammate and rival Tirunesh Dibaba and Turk Elvan Abeylegesse. In London, Defar prevailed in a last-lap sprint over her highly more favored competitors, the 2011 double world champion Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya and the Beijing and London 10,000 champion Dibaba, who took silver and bronze, respectively, in the English capital."After eight years, for me to win gold here is a great achievement, and I feel as if I've been born again," said Defar. "To win gold in your third Olympics is very difficult. I have passed through some difficult times. I have lost out at championships due to illness. This was a very critical Olympics for me because I might not contest another Olympics, so I thank God."After also taking 5000 gold at the world championships in 2007, Defar had had to settle for bronze in Berlin in 2009 and Daegu in 2011, both times behind Cheruiyot."Not one single person...," Defar began, amending her sentence to continue, "Very few people expected me to do this well here."Indeed, coming into London, Cheruiyot had been the early favorite in the 5000 and 10,000 after dominating both events in recent years in the absence of the injured former double world champion Dibaba. Once Dibaba's resurgent 2012 form became clear, she was widely expected to defend both of her Beijing crowns, particularly after she resoundingly defeated Cheruiyot and the field in the 10,000 one week ago."I have lost many races," added Defar, who had continued to shake with sobs during her victory lap in London after she returned the Orthodox Christian image of the Virgin Mary to her top, where she had tucked it before the race. "So when God made this dream come true for me, my emotions were beyond my control."After suffering defeat in Daegu, where she also dropped out of the 10,000, Defar continued to finish behind her rivals in the 2012 track season, losing to Cheruiyot in the Doha and Rome Diamond League 5000m and to Dibaba in New York."After three Diamond League races, I changed my training," said Defar. "I went from doing training for meetings to doing very focused championship training. My husband served as my trainer, and I changed the work I was doing."“I dedicate this medal to three great people, my father, my mother, and my husband Teddy—especially to my husband Teddy, who has gone through so many trials and has made so many sacrifices for me,” Defar, her eyes tearing up again, said before elaborating on the changes she made in her training in addition to working on race tactics."In a championship race, there is no pacesetter, and the pace fluctuates,” Defar said. “At one point, the pace is fast and at another, it slows, and at still another, there is pushing. I worked hard on preparing for these kinds of situations—where a very tough variable pace goes from being very high to almost a standstill, and which numbs your legs—and on how to overcome these surges and be able to fight at the end. I was working on these things with male pacesetters.”“Teddy hired the pacesetters to work with me,” added Defar, who met her husband Tewodros Hailu in the athletic club she belongs to, where he used to be a soccer player. “He tells them what pace to run, and to increase and decrease the pace. My legs usually go numb when the pace varies greatly, and I worked on that.”Defar remained near the back of the pack in Friday's 5000 final, which started out slow, and she moved up behind Dibaba when the latter took the lead and significantly upped the pace with four laps to go. Defar followed Dibaba's kick on the final laps, charging past her on the finish straight."Our plan was for either me or Tirunesh to collect gold," said Defar. "I feel I have fulfilled my responsibility to my people in Ethiopia, and I look to a younger generation to follow in our footsteps. I have competed in three Olympics and earned three medals. If I don't contest another Olympics, it will be alright."Defar feels at peace with her current legacy on the track, in this latest chapter of which her husband played another critical role.She has broken the indoor and outdoor world 5000m records in the past, running 14:12.88 in 2008, and won an unprecedented four straight world titles in the indoor 3000m, but her last two outdoor world championships featured attempts at the 5000 and 10,000 that may have backfired.Distance double gold has held allure for Ethiopian athletes after Miruts Yifter won the two events at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and the great Haile Gebrselassie tried and failed to emulate him, while Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele achieved the feat at the Olympics in 2008 and at the world championships, she in 2005, he in 2009.After running the fifth-fastest time ever, 29:59.20, for 10,000m in 2009, Defar attempted both distances in the Berlin world championships, where she came down with the flu on her arrival in Germany; and she took another crack at the double in Daegu. Both times, she was out of the medals in the 10,000, and third in the 5000 behind Kenyans Cheruiyot and Sylvia Kibet.In an interview earlier this year, Defar, citing food-related illness in Daegu, insisted that only her ill-health on both occasions had hampered her performances, and that the double attempts had not got in the way of her chances in the 5000. At the start of the 2012 Olympic season, she was apparently still determined to tackle the double in London.“I had planned to run both distances,” said Defar. “It’s my husband who said, ‘Absolutely not!’ and stopped me. ‘Focus on one and tackle just one. Why put yourself under that pressure?’ he said. That’s why I say that he deserves the credit for this success. He insisted that I run one and take gold in one.“Choosing one has helped me succeed,” continued Defar, who entered the 5000 with fresh legs, unlike Dibaba and Cheruiyot, who came in having raced over 15,000m in the past week: the first round of the 5000 and the 10,000 final."I know both are tough competitors," said Defar after reclaiming the Olympic title in 15:04.25. "I have lost to them many times, but today, I felt very good about my chances at getting gold, and about my training."As she collapsed in tears after the finish, Defar had plenty on her mind in addition to her fans back home in Ethiopia. “I was thinking a lot about my family, my husband, what I have been through, and especially, my two girls, Melat and Lydia,” said Defar, who adopted Melat, now 11, several years ago, and Lydia, 5, last year. “Especially the little one, who was following me around as I prepared to leave, saying ‘Please win, for me.’ Last year, after I lost in Daegu, I didn’t go back home for one month, and I stayed in Europe because I was upset and didn’t want to go back to Ethiopia right away. So because she has that in mind, Lydia was saying, ‘If you lose, you won’t come back to Ethiopia, so please win,’ and following me until the end, when I went into the car.”Now, Defar heads back to Addis Ababa with her second Olympic gold medal in hand, having emulated not Miruts Yifter's two titles in one Olympiad as she had hoped in championships past to do, but Ethiopia’s 1992 and 2000 Olympic 10,000 champion Derartu Tulu's two titles eight years apart."I have been hoping for this day for a long time," said Defar.